


Renegade

by colt



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4043647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colt/pseuds/colt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-portal. A hard sought after gain and a crippling loss. Dipper handles his role as the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renegade

Betrayal smothered the Mystery Shack, and choking it down just for the slim hours he spent sleeping lately was overwhelming enough. It seeped into the surrounding forest, too, and he found himself venturing further and further away. The journals had been reclaimed. He had nothing to go on. He just wandered around, hoping to run into something worth recording in the pages of his shabby, re-used notebook. The first half was old US history notes, most of which he’d torn out, before he’d just given up completely.  
The thing was, he couldn’t stomach being with them. Acting as if they were some big, happy family. Usually he left before any of them got up, a master avoidance technique, but sometimes he’d hear them, laughing downstairs. Laughing at the big joke he was for trusting Stan. Or for nearly foiling the ‘innocent’ plan, all apocalyptic potential aside. As if he didn’t have a reason to believe the man whom he’d been fooled by all summer would do anything remotely bad. As if discovering a huge portal capable of world destruction downstairs didn’t justify a little hesitation. It didn’t matter what they thought, not anymore. He’d been stupid, and naive, but he’d paid the price for it, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.  
Dipper glanced at his compass. The sun was beginning to descend, and it’d take a few hours to trek back through the woods, meaning he really ought to head back. The image of slipping inside while they all gathered around the table slurping spaghetti made him feel sick, though. Instead, he braved the underbrush ahead of him, dodging stray branches. There was a clearing up ahead. Well, sort of. More like a maze, but cut low enough that he could glimpse the other side, even at his height. He stepped inside, winding his way through. It was at the middle, looking out, that he finally understood. This was no maze, it was a crop circle. He torn his notebook from his bag, trying to replicate the design as best he could, when a blinding light encompassed him. He was running before he even got his sight back, straight through the tall grass. He needed cover of some sort, from whatever it was. He glanced up when he cleared the trees, the object in the sky whirling, the beam of light retracting. Dipper began scrawling out a description, wishing he had his camera, but it had been in Mabel’s possession before the incident, and he hadn’t talked to her post-stab-in-the-back yet. Then it was gone, vanished from the sky. He focused on the image in his mind, detailing the report as best he could. Finally he slipped it back in his bag, that same thrilling adrenaline pumping through him. He’d actually had an encounter of the first kind, he just couldn’t believe it! Well, he always suspected, with all the weird stuff drawn to Gravity Falls, but this was an actual confirmation. He whooped his fist in the air. Take that Stanford.  
A light blasted again, pausing his arm. He was submerged in the blue glow stemming from above, and he felt an odd churning in his stomach, just before his feet began to rise off the ground. He scrambled in the tractor beam, trying to somehow shimmy himself loose. It wasn’t any use, he was still being reeled up, height quickly reaching dangerous degrees. This was the fourth kind. This was the fourth kind. A half-dozen more yards and he’d be hovering above the treetops. Once that happened, he was a gonner. Get ready for contact of the fifth kind plus. Dipper shoved against the force field, forcing his arm through. He managed to get it out and grab hold of a nearby branch. He dragged himself forward, out of the suspended gravitational pull. He kicked loose of the last bit of light, and realized a minor flaw in this plan, because now he was free-falling maybe seventy feet. Gravity yanked at his body, wrenching his fingers loose. He waved his arms wildly, reaching out for any branches he may catch on the way. One was just ahead, and he shot out his arm. It folded in on itself as his body toppled on top of it, and he was falling again, but at least at a lesser velocity. He slammed into a second branch, and then the bushes below, just before darkness tumbled across his vision.  
Dipper woke up groaning. He ached all over, but this was negligible compared to the searing pain in his arm, the impossibly severe pressure on his ribs, like a foot was trying to smash them to bits. He had to get up, go to the hospital. They wouldn’t find him until it was too late if he waited for help. He was too off trail. Somehow, he’d have to manage walking to the road. Dipper pushed himself up with a low hiss, tears dabbing at his eyes. It was a few miles to the highway, and a lot more to the Gravity Shack. As if that wasn’t bad enough, night had arrived while he was out. He rummaged around in his backpack with his only operational arm, pulling out a flashlight which thankfully hadn’t broken in the fall. He set it between his teeth and followed the direction his compass pointed at. Sometime later, he stumbled out in front of a car. It must have been well past midnight, which was confirmed as he slipped into the passenger side, noting the dashboard clock while enroute to the hospital. He told the guy he fell from a tree, which was nearly the whole truth. Enough of it, anyways. He insisted the man just drop him off at the front doors, and once inside, he was swept up into the ER. It only took about three hours for the X-rays and cast, and luckily they accepted unaccompanied minors with only minor insistences that he call his guardian. Yeah right. Plus, he already knew his health insurance information by heart, thanks to preparation for an incident like this.  
Just before dawn, Dipper stepped onto the bus, nursing his bruised ribs. There wasn’t much the hospital could do about that, except hand him a prescription for a bottle of painkillers. The bus stopped some blocks away from the Shack, and Dipper lugged himself forward. He just wanted to go to bed. There was a nasty bruise sprouting up on his cheek, and his whole body felt like it’d been through a decade long workout in a single night. He scrubbed at his eyes, hand brushing the bandage on the cheek opposite the bruise. The one with the semi-shallow gash.  
The Shack was visible now, only about thirty yards away. He’d never wanted his bed more than right now, but it wouldn’t come so soon. Stanley was stomping off the porch and right at him, looking more angry than Dipper had maybe ever seen him. He couldn’t muster up any sort of defense, he was too exhausted after a night like that.  
“Where have you been?” Was the first question, before his eyes actually appraised Dipper for all his wrecked appearance. The previous question was roughly shoved aside.  
“What happened?” Stan demanded.  
“I fell out of a tree.” Dipper muttered, stepping past Stan.  
Stanley hauled him back but the back of his shirt, “Oh no ya don’t. You went to the hospital and didn’t even call us? What, did you take the damn bus home?”  
Yes, on both accounts, but he didn’t say that. That would make it a hundred times less likely Stan would let go anytime soon. Instead, he just stared up at Stan. At whoever this guy was.


End file.
